Podcast Highlights

Piano Inspires Podcast: Leila Viss

Written By Leila Viss, Andrea McAlister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Leila Viss, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Viss? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Viss on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Leila Viss

Andrea McAlister: I do want to go back a little bit to the work you’re doing now, because you are offering a lot of online tools for teachers. I’m really curious about your “composiums” here. So can you tell me about the work you’re doing now with other teachers around the world? 

Leila Viss: Well, I think it comes down to the fact that making music was so important to me. And I am not a published composer or arranger, but I started arranging a lot of things myself, and I loved that. You know, the world faded away when I was working on that project. I’m like, this is feeding my soul. I wonder if other people need to have this too. And then I also created something called Cookie Cutter Composing, which was helping my students compose, and we did eight bars at a time. So we did, you know, section A, then Section B, section A, and it was very rigid, some people would call it, but we were very successful with it. It just happened to come out right before the accident, and then COVID happened. And so I did this with all my students online, and it was perfect. We used Noteflight, so I could see their accounts, all that kind of stuff. So it was, you know, it really helped us all get through a rough time, because we could at least do that creating, you know, yeah, they could play piano. 

But then I sold that resource, but I noticed that people still had questions on it. Teachers were like, well, how do you do this? How do you do that? And I thought, “You know what, I wonder if I need to have some kind of workshop that could help teachers go through the process?” And I don’t know when the word “composium” came to my head. 

AM: I love it, though. 

LV: I like that one. And so I had that feeling of, you know what, if I build it, maybe they’ll come.

I was also inspired by my mother. She is a retired art professor. She’s a quilter, a nationally known quilter. Her quilts are all over the nation, in different galleries, and we’re not talking about just patch work. We’re talking about abstracts, and they’re marvelous. They’re just absolutely gorgeous. But I was always envious of her, because she would go to her quilting workshops, and you bring your sewing machine, you bring your fabric, and you sew with all your other friends, and then you look over their shoulders and see what they’re doing. I thought, now, wouldn’t that be nice if I could do that with a group of teachers, so that we’re all in this atmosphere of, “oh, what are you doing? Oh, that’s cool. Oh, I like that idea.” 

So that brought me to this idea of, well, let’s have eight teachers, and we’ll do eight bars at a time, that kind of a thing. So we’ll piece together, just like we piece a quilt together, we’ll piece together a piece. And now I’m down to six teachers because that was a little bit much, and I have changed maybe a little bit of the format, but it’s a little bit of a piece every time. And then people come, they show us what they’re doing. It’s a very safe environment because I lay down really strict ground rules about how we give feedback. We don’t give feedback. We give feed-forward, those kinds of things so that people can feel comfortable and feel safe. Because I always, when we first listen to a piece, I always tell them that, “Doesn’t it kind of feel like someone’s peeking in your underwear drawer?” Because you know, you’re being very vulnerable, right? 

AM: It does take a lot of courage.

LV: It takes courage, and so I do a lot of mindset things, all those kinds of things, just to get them in the right place.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Leila Viss on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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  • WEBINAR: Creative Solutions for Online Studio Recitals with Sara Ernst, Rebecca Pennington, Anna Beth Rucker, and Leila Viss
  • PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Practicing with Backing Tracks by Bradley Sowash
  • PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: May 2018: First Looks: Apps for Teaching by Leila Viss
  • PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Yes, Technology Can Simplify Your Hectic Teaching Life! by George Litterst, Anna Fagan, Jennifer Foxx, Megan Hughes, Ellen Johansen, Adrienne McKinney, Patti Robertson, and Leila Viss
  • PIANO MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Creating by Chance by Bradley Sowash
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May 2018: First Looks: Apps for Teaching
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Gail Berenson

Written By Gail Berenson, Alejandro Cremaschi

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Gail Berenson, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Alejandro Cremaschi. Want to learn more about Berenson? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Berenson on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Gail Berenson

Gail Berenson: This was back in the mid 80s and there was no such thing.

Alejandro Cremaschi: Nothing. I think this topic in general was kind of either ignored or avoided or dismissed.

GB: Yeah, I mean, if you injured yourself, many people would drop out because they didn’t know how to fix it, or they didn’t know how to get past it. And if you were injured, I know Alice [Brandfonbrener] had done research on musicians in orchestras, and they were afraid to say anything to the conductor for fear they’d be fired. So taking that course was a monumental thing, and I came back and I said, “I’d like to initiate a new course.” So I went through all the development things of setting a new course in place, and in 1989 we offered the first course.

It was at that time, or maybe it was a little bit earlier, but it was at that time that other organizations were initiating wellness committees. The National Flute Association, they had a wellness committee. Richard Chronister came to me and said, “Would you put a committee together for [then] NCPP?” [now The Piano Conference: NCKP] at that time. That was 1989. Linda Cockey was one of the people that I called on. I mean, it was a huge committee. I mean, Corolla Grandia, who was from the UK, came in to be a part of that committee. I mean, you know, we’re only meeting once every other year, but, of course, we would do all this correspondence. And it was fantastic. It was sort of like birthing a baby, you know, it really was. 

AC: It’s like putting this topic that nobody was actually discussing in the first role.

GB: Right. And then it sort of grew from there. That was the first one that I was involved in. And then in 2012 I went to some ISME Conferences, the International Society for Music Education, and one of the members of the forum that I was a part of, this was the first committee that dealt with applied instruction and one-on-one instruction because everything else was music ed related. There was a person on that committee who was very interested in musicians’ health. And she said, “Would you start something for us here?” So I did, and that committee was the Committee on Musicians Health and Wellness Special Interest Group. It’s been going, well, since 2012. And then in 2015 College Music Society decided to start. 

I’m finding that that field has expanded so much because we always thought it started out dealing with how to recover from an injury. And then it was okay, how do we prevent an injury from coming? Okay, and then it was well, what about all the other aspects of wellness [and] performance anxiety.

AC: Which are so interconnected in the end. I mean, you can’t really treat an injury. Injuries can be also devastating psychologically. 

GB: Absolutely.

AC: So we have to treat the whole person.

GB: Then the other is an issue of vision. It turns out that music teachers are the first to find out that some students, children especially, have issues with vision, where the notes bounce around—it’s a muscle imbalance. It’s not, I mean, they can go to an optometrist and be tested. They have 20-20 vision, and the optometrist says, “You’re good to go.” But they’re getting headaches, and they can’t see the notes, and they keep bobbing their [heads] trying to find a way to read. And it impacts how they read everything. It’s not just music.

AC: Yeah, this is also important, such important work and, yeah, just getting that information out.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Gail Berenson on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Reflections on the Frances Clark Center 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Courtney Crappell

Written By Courtney Crappell, Jennifer Snow

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Courtney Crappell, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Jennifer Snow. Want to learn more about Crappell? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Crappell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Courtney Crappell

Jennifer Snow: What is your thought—as somebody who’s running an institution of higher learning—about the role of musicians in the world today? With the level of disruption and change we see, what are we preparing people for?

Courtney Crappell: I love that question. When I look at what we’ve been doing in academia or even as piano teachers, I think that our view has been much too narrow. I think a lot of people are figuring this out now, because the impact we can have is so much larger than where we’ve thought it would be, and that’s really exciting. 

So let me be more specific, I guess, about that. If your kid is going to go to university and say, “Oh, I’m going to major in music.” And you’re like, “Okay, well, that’s going to be hard. How are you going to have a career?” And thoughts, you know, really, people have a binary impression of what you do with that.

JS: Right.

CC: You’re going to perform, and if that doesn’t work out, or maybe, you know, if it is your passion, you’re going to teach. And it’s this this-or-that mentality. Of course, we, who’ve been in it, know there’s a lot of other pathways there, but we haven’t done a good job of letting the rest of the world know that. Really, we have such an opportunity to let more people know of the impact of the arts. So I feel like we really, I mean the teaching-performing, binary approach, we’ve been looking through the peephole in the door, and it’s time to open the whole door. 

When I talk to groups of parents with their students who are auditioning, I say the arts are all around you. They’re in the phones, the sounds your phones make. They’re in the clothes you’re wearing. They’re on the billboards you see on the side of the road. They’re everywhere. Employers are looking for creatives to hire, and I do believe that this understanding that the arts are part of the lives, rather than this optional add-on at the end of the day, “All right, we’re focused on your STEM preparation for a career. Now, let’s go tack on some piano lessons, because you gotta.” 

Two, the piano lessons are the fuel for creativity in the STEM fields. You know, as recently in Boston I was talking to an MIT faculty member [who is] retired now, but she was part of—the center doesn’t exist anymore—the Center for Advanced Visual Studies. And it was a group of people who believed that the marriage of technology and the arts was going to unlock significant secrets, you know, was going to lead to discoveries that couldn’t happen, or even just fuel the discoveries in specific disciplines. It’s fascinating to see work like that, because you think, MIT, well, we don’t really question the value of MIT, right? Like there’s IP coming out. We take it for granted these days, but look at music, theater and the arts at MIT. It’s the fuel for that. 

So where are we going? I mean, institutions like mine. I’m at a public state university, and I think there’s some degree plans that we’ve really not been focused on as academic faculty in the arts, specifically the liberal arts, Bachelor of Arts degrees, which are intended to prepare people for a broad variety of pathways. And you know, maybe this prediction won’t come true, but I think that the Bachelor of Arts degree is going to become a large focus for us, and more so than the Bachelor of Music degrees, which are performance-based. There’s not enough room in the degree plans. We continue to try to make them more modern and relevant to help these students be successful. So, you know, we’ve done things like, “All right, do your Bachelor of Music, but you should also do an arts entrepreneurship program, because you’re going to need that.” 

Well, what if you did a Bachelor of Arts degree, and you just build this into a broader portfolio? Whether it’s, you know, college prep programs at high schools for the arts or undergraduate degrees that are launch pads into other careers, we know these pathways exist because people have those jobs. You know, I talked to scientists who trained as musicians, lawyers who were actors. The list goes on and on and on. We know that happens, and we’ll talk about that when we’re promoting the value of the arts, study in the arts; but we, I don’t think we’ve put our money where our mouth is to say, let’s really invest in that. Let’s commit to those programs. So I feel like we’re on the cusp. Like I said, we just need to open the door, and there’s concerns about shrinking budgets or low recruiting numbers, those problems won’t exist if people understand the value. So that’s where I think we’re heading.

JS: That’s exciting.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Courtney Crappell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Twenty-First Century Pedagogy: A Whole New World Again
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Barbara Fast

Written By Barbara Fast, Pamela Pike

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Barbara Fast, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Pamela Pike. Want to learn more about Fast? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Fast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Barbara Fast

Pamela Pike: I’m going to ask a pointed question, because I think it might be interesting to our listeners. I didn’t mention this in the bio, but you are one of the co-founders of GP3 [Group Piano/Piano Pedagogy Forum], and if I know this story correctly, that idea developed and blossomed while you were a Ph.D. student. 

Barbara Fast: Yes.

PP: So talk about the beginnings. Obviously, you saw a need. You saw an opening. But what does it take to take something from an idea in a restaurant, to something that twenty however many years later is just this really important conference that we have?

BF: Well, I credit Michelle Conda, and it was a restaurant in Norman. [I was a] doctoral student. She said, “Barbara, have you ever thought of running a conference?” And really, related to group piano and piano pedagogy, and what was behind it all, we would come to a conference. We were new in our jobs or trying to figure out jobs, and we would all get together over lunch and dinner, and we were just talking about, “well, how are you doing this? How are you doing that?” We were sharing ideas on group teaching and on teaching piano pedagogy, and we said, “We’re spending all our time at a conference talking about this. Why don’t we just run a conference on it?” And then, she and I thought about who else to pull together and who would work well on it. We got a group of four, and that started it all. It was held at CCM for a number of years. 

And then I do have to credit, it was a ton of work running a conference, [for] the four of us, [and] putting on this conference every two years. And finally, MTNA got involved. And I’m very aware, had MTNA not gotten involved—particularly Brian Shepard, I worked so closely with him over the years, he’s an amazing organizer—had we not had that connection with MTNA, I don’t think we could have survived. The workload of it, we couldn’t have kept it going. But obviously, the idea [that we] worked on was we would just get together and brainstorm. You know, just brainstorm, who should we bring in? And we felt pretty free to just be crazy about, and not feel like we had to do the same old, same old. And then we would bring in really interesting speakers. So, yeah, that’s been a really fun thing to be involved with.

PP: What did you learn from that experience?

BF: Okay, this is one thing I tell my doctoral students. We had a group of four working together, generating ideas. I think it’s really [about paying] attention. You’ve got to work with people who don’t necessarily all have the same strengths, but who get along. You have to get along. But you do not all want to have the same strengths. You want to have various strengths, because that is what’s going to make the thing work on it. And I’ve noticed, I love working with people and groups, and every partnership I’ve ever had, the reason it’s worked is because we get along really well, but the strengths aren’t necessarily matched, and someone has a strength that someone else does not, and that makes it go.

PP: Yeah, that’s so important, and I’m so glad you brought that up, because again, when you look at the finished product, and you know, you see whether it’s a performance, a collaborative performance, or a collaborative venture, like, you know, GP3, or anything, if you’ve done your job well, it looks effortless. But we all know the work that went into it and learning to navigate different personalities and how we work together and build on one another’s strengths and weaknesses, I think must be important.

BF: Yeah, no. I think that’s a really key thing to making [and] helping things work.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Barbara Fast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Engaging the Brain: Practice Tips from an Interview with Spencer Myer
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Rochelle Sennet

Written By Rochelle Sennet, Sara Ernst

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Rochelle Sennet, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Sara Ernst. Want to learn more about Sennet? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Sennet on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Rochelle Sennet

Sara Ernst: I’m getting the sense that you have a laser vision towards something, and if you put your mind on it, it’s going to happen. 

Rochelle Sennet: That’s it. [laugh] Yeah, I will own that. Yes. I was that kid. I’m still that adult. 

SE: Yeah, no, I love that. Now my question is, if you’ve now had a student like that? How has that experience been for you when you see that in a student?

RS: It’s the coolest thing because I can at least be able to explore this, try this, and try this. And this is why, if a student immediately [wants] to specialize in only one composer—and I understand where that is and try this, you don’t want to stifle that—but then that’s where I like to share my story, yeah, to say you never know. And this is the part where you learn everything. And even if you come away from saying you’ll never, ever play Mozart, or ever, ever play J.S. Bach, ever again, you could at least be able to teach your own students and say, “Hey, maybe it doesn’t connect with me, but at least be able to play it, at least keep the options open.” 

So yes, it’s actually always fun when I get students that are just very energetic or just have a lot of focus. But I also recognize that I don’t get a lot of students that [say] “this is what I definitely want to do.” And of course, we all started with one thing, and then come out [of] college with something different. A lot of us do, yeah. It’s always a hard line to, I mean, [a] fine line to walk, because you don’t want to stifle a student’s creative energy just when you figure out what makes them tick. So it’s always a little different with every student. 

But I also, what I love about [it] is the problem solving [part] myself. Yeah, you figure out, just even with something technical, or just figuring out, what is it that makes this student tick with the composer that they are connecting with, and why [by] just listening to them. And then, if they like this, maybe they might like this or this. And so I’m just problem solving. You want the students to be able to play pieces that they love. And they enjoy. That’s why we do music in the first place. And so I never want to be that teacher to stifle that energy. And also, I want to use that time that I have with the students, to also try this and to encourage them to stay open as well.

SE: So it sounds like you might be a “yes” teacher, in the sense, if your student brings you an idea, you’d say, “Yes, let’s.”

RS: Depends. It’s a yes, no.

SE: [Laugh] So you are a “yes–no” teacher. 

RS: In fact, someone’s students, actually, they’ve heard me say this. Well, they asked me a question: “Well, should I do it this way?” “Yes, no.” I’ll say why there’s a yes, and then why there’s a no.

SE: Oh, I love this. Can you give an example of that?

RS: So a student might ask, “Well, do you want me to play it that way?” “Yes, no. No, because it’s not what I [want]. [You] are going to be telling the story. So let me explain why this is important.” You give the background, and so then, “Let me show you this way and why this way doesn’t work.” Whether something technical, try it this way, you see what if you’re trying to think about being more proficient getting from key A to key B, if you’re doing extra movements, that’s not efficient. So just something like that is why there’s the “yes,” and here’s why there’s the “no,” and you explain. So my students also know that I want them to be successful. And sometimes that can be some conversations that will also have them think about things. But [being a] “yes” teacher, my students will probably say, I am far from that.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Rochelle Sennet on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Announcing the Keynote Speakers, Jazz Artists, PEDx Speakers, and Concert Artists of The Piano Conference: NCKP 2025
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Scott McBride Smith

Written By Scott McBride Smith, Craig Sale

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Scott McBride Smith, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Craig Sale. Want to learn more about Smith? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Smith on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Scott McBride Smith

Craig Sale: What impact do you see music having on our world now?

Scott McBride Smith: Yeah, that’s a good one, isn’t it? Well, there’s something magical about the combinations of sounds, isn’t it? There’s something special about being around beauty that just elevates your life. The worst piano student, at least, is there to experience beauty. You’re not around violence, you’re not around suffering. You and I, because we’re professionals, spend our lives around people that actually want to do it. That’s really kind of a gift. 

So why doesn’t the rest of the world see that? I don’t know. That’s a good question. Do you have an answer? I just don’t know why they don’t value it. It seems so valuable to me. So you know, as a department chair at KU, I have to understand the decisions these days and universities are made for financial reasons.

CS: Right.

SMS: Again, I’m not criticizing because if I were provost of the University, I would have to too because “who’s going to pay?” So you have to make financial decisions. But I sometimes wonder, don’t they see how good this is for the school, and how much the marching band means? I wouldn’t say they don’t see it, but I don’t think it says value to some other things with higher dollar sign numbers on it.

CS: That’s how they’re trained to look at it, is the dollar sign rather than the impact on those kids’ lives.

SMS: So I have to be a big boy and understand that and make sure that I’m doing my best to justify what we do on [a] financial basis, which isn’t really my belief as [to] what the importance of it is. But anyway, since that’s the way the world works, I have to live in the world the way it is, not the way I wish it were.

CS: Also, I think [on] music in the world, I find it so accessible for people to get music and experience it passively. 

SMS: Yeah. That’s right, and that’s a good thing and a bad thing. There’s nobody in the whole world that doesn’t have music in their life in some way. But maybe it’s a little too easy to just push a button. We’ve lost that belief in participation. We expect it to be delivered to us. 

CS: Active music-making is what we might be concerned about, I think. Do you think music impacts the future of our world? 

SMS: Yes. I’m not sure we’re going to win, though. [Laugh]

CS: [Laugh] But it could. Yeah, it could shape it.

SMS: Anyway, nobody’s asking a pair of piano teachers what we’re doing. We just got to keep doing what we can do. No one’s asking [for] our opinion.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Scott McBride Smith on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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What Do You Do To Make the Recital a Happy and Successful Experience?
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Penelope Roskell

Written By Penelope Roskell, Sara Ernst

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Penelope Roskell, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Sara Ernst. Want to learn more about Roskell? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Roskell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Penelope Roskell

Sara Ernst: I’ve heard you talk about—I think the phrase you used was “duty of care.” And that comes into my mind hearing you speak about this.

Penelope Roskell: Yeah. I feel as teachers, what I’ve been talking about really already, we have a responsibility to look after our students physically and also to nurture them as artists now—to instill a love of music, [a] love of art, and the higher things in life. Really, the things that we really live for, as musicians.

We can’t always get that right, and there are things that every teacher will do wrong and regret and look back and think, “Oops, I really got it wrong with that in that lesson” or whatever. But I think if that’s what we set ourselves as our challenge, then we’ll get somewhere along that. Especially if you’re a young teacher, you’re not going to get everything right. And you know, maybe a student will be practicing in a very unwise way, and they might hurt their hand. Maybe it’s something you couldn’t prevent. You just didn’t have the knowledge. You didn’t have the experience. 

So in that case, you ask somebody who does have the experience for the extra support, or you find it out online, or wherever you go. And then you come back, and you will probably have learned from that experience, and you’re an even better teacher in the future from it. So we learn from our mistakes, don’t we? 

SE: We do, and it’s one of those things that I’m so grateful we have such a community in our field of people and experts and other teachers. 

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Penelope Roskell on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Techniques for Beginning Pianists
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Jess Johnson

Written By Jessica Johnson, Andrea Mcalister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Jess Johnson, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Johnson? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Johnson on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Jessica Johnson.

Andrea McAlister: You mentioned this word “trust” a lot. I often share with my students that trust is really about having something that is so precious to you that you know you can share with another person, and everything will be fine. You’re making yourself vulnerable by taking that thing that is very precious and saying, “I trust you with this,” versus the opposite of, “I cannot share my vulnerabilities with you.” Right? 

And you are doing such amazing work with your students, sharing those vulnerabilities and saying, “You can trust me.” But what I love even more about what you’re saying is you are also showing them that they can trust themselves. 

Jess Johnson: That’s right.

AM: And with these reflective activities that you are helping them through. I think unless you are taught how to do that, then that is a missing component of that process of trust.

JJ: Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. I know in my own journey, as somebody who has had generalized anxiety, that’s been something that, you know, those of us with trait anxiety are more likely to have performance anxiety. The data is clear, and it makes perfect, intuitive sense as well. Being afraid to put myself out there—I think of the things I didn’t do because I didn’t want to take the risk, but I also think of the things I did do even though they were really hard because [they] aligned with my values. 

When I went through a medical crisis about ten years ago, I started a mindfulness class. I learned stillness and sitting with my anxiety and holding it rather than resisting avoiding [it]. It transformed everything in my life, particularly my teaching, my performance, because then I was able to say, instead of, “Oh, it’s terrible. I can’t do this,” I would frame the conversation around principles of self-compassion: “This feels bad. I’m not happy.” Then with mindful curiosity: “What is it exactly? Oh, I don’t like the pacing in this transition,” or “I need to find a different fingering or a different gesture, a different way to group that so that it makes more sense.” And then you could strategize and find a way forward and meet yourself where you are. You’re your own teacher, right? And then that transformed my teaching because of helping them see where they are and what do I need, rather than the personal judgment [of] perfectionism. It is, “how can I solve this? What kinds of sounds can I make?” And then the joy and the playfulness comes through. I remember the second grader, you know the thing that I was so excited about. 

I always say, when I have those delightful moments with a student, I call them “moments of joy,” “cultivating joy,” where you catch somebody in the act and you’re connecting, and something’s happening. I’ll often point it out to them, “This is a moment of joy for me.” I’m really happy to be here right now, and modeling that and waking them up and drawing attention, and they’re like, “Oh yeah!” Because we’re so busy and the world is pushing us to be busy, [I appreciate] having some stillness where we’re just right here. I do things like body scans before the lessons, before my own practice, before my own work, things that help me declare it a sacred space that we’re coming together to connect, share, and trust each other, whether it’s alone or with a partner, whether rehearsal. It’s a great thing I’ve learned, and I’m so grateful that my path went in that direction and that I was able to explore that because it’s really revolutionized where I am and how I feel about being a professional musician and teacher.

AM: Yes, I so appreciate how you’re talking about mindfulness and meeting yourself, but meeting yourself with curiosity instead of judgment. And that is such a difficult thing for humans to do, because we are so naturally drawn to judgment first instead of curiosity. And maybe there are just people out there who just naturally do this. And I would love to be one of those people, but it’s something that—

JJ: Then you wouldn’t be who you are, which is your superpower.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Jess Johnson on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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How an Alternatively Sized Keyboard Transformed my Artistry and Life as a Musician and Teacher
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Anton Nel

Written By Artina McCain, Anton Nel

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Anton Nel, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Artina McCain. Want to learn more about Nel? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Chee on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Anton Nel

Artina McCain: What inspired you to make the switch from piano to fortepiano or harpsichord? I happen to know you have these at your house too.

Anton Nel: My place looks like a museum now. The first wonderful teacher I had when I lived on the farm, the man who started me really, he was—again, you know, you think back of these days and how wonderful these people were. I had never seen a harpsichord before or anything, but he had records of this instrument that this music was written for, and so he made cassette tapes of his records for me of the Bach harpsichord concertos and all this stuff. I was mesmerized by the sound of it, and just loved it.

Then I played on one of my earliest concerts. We went to Johannesburg. I was playing, I think, the Kabalevsky Third [Piano] Concerto on this program with other young people. You win these concerto competitions, right, and then you play in these concerts. The first piece on the concert was the Bach Concerto for Four Harpsichords. It’s the thing that’s like the Vivaldi Four Violin Concerto. Well, I had never seen a harpsichord before. I think I was maybe 13 or 14. My mother was beside herself. I had absolutely lost all interest in the piece that I was playing. I wanted to play on those harpsichords, and of course, and I caused such a consternation. And of course, everything was fine, you know, but then I subsequently got a small Italian single-manual instrument of my own. So I started to play when I was 15 or so, the harpsichord, and I played through school, and I also like the organ and so on.

The fortepiano—there’s a wonderful man in Austin whose name is Keith Womer, and he has a period instrument orchestra called La Follia. He had this idea that I would possibly take to playing the fortepiano. About ten years ago, he called me and offered me an opportunity to play a Mozart and a Haydn concerto with the orchestra. It was like a miracle that happened. I took this instrument and I absolutely loved it, and started to really learn it. And then suddenly, all of these things that I puzzled about for so many years—the articulations in Mozart, the dynamic markings, all this finicky stuff that on the modern piano is so tricky to negotiate—suddenly became second nature. So I really, really worked at it. Then, I brought my harpsichord playing back as well. So about a quarter of my engagements now I play these instruments, and it has opened my ears in ways I couldn’t even imagine. I always thought that I listened pretty well, but—and my students—this was a little bit before your time. I think my students now always know when I have a harpsichord or fortepiano concert coming up because I’m impossible. No slur is right, no articulation is right. I get all sort of OCD and persnickety and sort of fussy—I’m always a little difficult. So you talk of inspirations—that has made a big, big difference. It sort of added a new dimension to me as a musician, so that makes me happy. So, yes, playing that annually is always an adventure. I’ve learned so much new music too because of it.

AM: So do you now teach some of that to your students too? Do you have them over and they play it?

AN: I do sometimes. If I ever have a little bit more time in my schedule, I would like to teach a sort of a basic class. I’m not sure I would be qualified to actually teach anybody to play the instruments as a major. I don’t think my knowledge is quite—I’m not quite ready for it, but absolutely the basics I can. I think it’s important for pianists to know these things. Even if they don’t play them seriously, just to have the opportunity to try them, because it’s initially quite shocking. Still, when I go—I just had to play a fortepiano program the other day—you go to it, and for the first two or three hours on the instrument, if you’ve not played it for a while, you sound so bad. Oh, you sound so [bad] because you keep wanting to—and for those things, you have to let the instrument play you. You must not play it. You let it. It’ll show you, if you let it. But if you sort of take out your Rachmaninoff Third [Piano] Concerto chops, it’s not going to work.

AM: Definitely not.

AN: But, we all have tendencies, you know. So that’s awesome.

AM: Yeah, we don’t have enough opportunity to play period instruments as pianists. So that’s incredible that that’s a part of your engagements now, is to play those instruments.

AN: Yes, because, I mean, again, it’s something that becomes very specialized. The groups I play with are 100% authentic. I mean, last year I had this fabulous opportunity—I played the Beethoven Fourth [Piano] Concerto on an instrument from about 1809 with about a fifty piece all-original instrument orchestra. Even the clarinet[ist]s made their own instruments, so it’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live. I had to relearn the whole thing, of course, and the instruments still had knee pedals, just like my fortepiano at home, and also all his instructions about how to use the una corda and all this and in the slow movement. It was a transformative thing. I’ll never forget it.

AM: Wow.

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An Interview with Anton Nel
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Jeremy Siskind

Written By Jeremy Siskind, Andrea Mcalister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Jeremy Siskind, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Siskind? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Siskind on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Jeremy Siskind.

Andrea McAlister: I did want to ask you about the work that you’ve done in Lebanon. I don’t know if you’re continuing to do that work, but I know recently, you’ve done some work with students through a program there. Can you talk a little bit about the work you’ve done and the impact? 

Jeremy Siskind: Yeah, absolutely. There are a couple of different organizations, but principally there’s this organization called Jazz Education Abroad, and I’ve gotten to go to China, Thailand, Lebanon, Cyprus, Tunisia [to] teach jazz. And you know, jazz is, as Duke Ellington would put it, America’s classical music. Jazz is quintessentially American music, and so the mission is always to teach people about, hopefully, one of the best parts of American culture. We know that America, [to] different parts of the world, is not necessarily considered the greatest friend or the greatest peacemaker, and so to be able to go in and share our values through our music, right? Jazz is so intertwined with American values, right? Jazz is democratic. Everybody in the band gets to contribute, right? Jazz is liberated. You don’t have to stay on this score. You get to express yourself, right? Jazz is the free speech of music. 

So as we go around and, of course, we’re not proselytizing, but we do try to show how beautiful the music is, of course, and how beautiful these values can be. And, we always learn as much as we teach when we go to these places, because we see how people live. We see how enthusiastic they are about all kinds of music. We see how enthusiastic they are about being creative, about how they’re living their life, about how they’re supporting, you know, their communities, how they’re contributing to their communities through music. And it’s always really moving.

Particularly, I’ll share something about our program in Cyprus. So Cyprus is a small island in the Mediterranean. I’m going to get the history wrong, so I’m not going to say anything, any exact dates. But at a certain point it was Greek-owned, and then there was a Turkish–some would say invasion, some would say liberation. I’m going to leave that to–

AM: Leave that to history. 

JS: But the island basically was split in a two, and it has been for many years. And the capital, I think, is the last split capital, the last divided capital, [since] the Berlin Wall fell. As you could imagine, politically, it’s a little bit tense, and people on the Turkish side, you know, don’t necessarily have the warmest feelings [towards] people on the Greek side, and etc. And the expressed purpose of the camp in Cyprus is that we are putting students from both sides into the same ensembles and allowing them to find common ground through music. And it’s just so beautiful to see, because, you know, there can be tensions, but it’s hard to dislike somebody who you’re getting to make amazing music with, who you’re like working together with to form a musical goal. We’ve seen these friendships form, we’ve seen people’s walls come down, and that’s just been like a really phenomenal experience. You know, I’m just trying to teach them how to play jazz, but there’s all this other stuff happening, administratively, behind the scenes, to make it this powerful game changer culturally.

AM: Yes, and you’re teaching them so much more than jazz. You’re teaching them collaboration and friendship that they otherwise wouldn’t get. And that’s—you’re saving the world through music. 

JS: I won’t take credit for that. We’re doing, you know, we’re doing our best, bit by bit.

AM: One person at a time. Bit by bit, bird by bird.

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Creating New Piano Music in the Digital Age
Dr. Andrea McAlister serves as Director of Digital Programming for the Frances Clark Center and a Senior Editor for Piano Magazine. Dr. McAlister is Professor of Piano Pedagogy at Oberlin College and a member of the Yamaha Master Educator Collective.
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Martha Hilley

Written By Martha Hilley, Artina McCain

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Martha Hilley, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Artina McCain. Want to learn more about Hilley? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Hilley on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Martha Hilley.

Artina McCain: We always like to end the interview with, “how does piano inspire you?” which I feel like you’ve already told us. But how do you feel like piano inspires you in this portion of your life?

Martha Hilley: Ah. [pause] Number one, I have never dreaded going into a classroom. The fact that I was given the opportunity to teach piano, the way I taught it in groups, changed my life. And the fact that I figured I would die at the University, just in my studio or classroom, someday. I wasn’t going to retire.

Well then, I became president of MTNA, and I knew that I couldn’t do a college job and MTNA at the same time [and]do the kind of job I wanted to do. So I retired. But I knew what I wanted to do was what I’m doing now because piano has shown me, not only does it inspire me to be the best teacher I can possibly be, but it inspires everybody that gets involved with it, if you allow them to be inspired. You know?

And group piano gives you the chance, as the teacher, to shut up. I know people think, “God, you talk all the time,” but I shut up every once in a while and let the students talk about the mistakes they’ve made or a particular way they practiced on something. So they have the opportunity of not only having a teacher, but [also] having peers in the same room with them that have the same problems that they have. They found a solution, so they talk about it, and it’s not coming from me all the time.

AM: Right. 

MH: And you’ve been on the website before that goes along with the classes. I’ve had students that come up to me and they say, “Hilley! I cannot get away from you! I go to the website, and I turn on a sound file, and there you are!” And I said, “Well, honey, I [will] go to the practice room with you, to try to talk through things, because I have an idea of the mistakes you might be making and things like that.” So, you know, I inspire them, maybe, but they inspire me more. And they inspire me because of what they do with the piano. So the piano is my life.

Now, I’m not a performer, you know. A stroke in 1993 when I was 49 took care of that from the standpoint of what it has done to my left hand. But that’s okay. I can still play chords and things like that. But piano will never leave my life. It just won’t, yeah. So I guess that’s [how I am] inspired.

AM: That is very [inspiring]. And you inspire us. You’ve inspired me. You always made me feel seen, even in places where other people didn’t see me. So I just wanted to tell you that. We love you, Hilley. 

MH: Oh, and the love is coming back. [laugh]

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I Don’t Get It
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Pete Jutras

Written By Pete Jutras, Jennifer Snow

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Pete Jutras, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Jennifer Snow. Want to learn more about Jutras? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Jutras on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Pete Jutras.

Jennifer Snow: How did [working for] the [Piano] Magazine inform you? Like that experience of expanded community, how did that change the way you perceived what you were going to do yourself, personally? All of a sudden, your exposure broadens dramatically.

Pete Jutras: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I’m not sure I ever thought about it that way. One of the principles that was always very important to me as editor was to present a real range of ideas. I never thought the [Piano] Magazine would be any good if it was Pete’s ideas. That’s not what a magazine should be. You know, it should be the world’s ideas. And so I tried very hard to, you know, even when there were things I might have raised my eyebrows at or said, “Well, I wouldn’t really teach it that way,” I still always wanted to run that content. There’s always value in any idea, and I think the dialectic process of comparing ideas is also really valuable. 

So I would say it just had a huge influence in cluing me into all the different things that were happening out there, all the different ways people were thinking and approaching teaching and studios. You know, new ideas, old ideas, different approaches. It was really valuable to have a front row seat for all of that and, you know, just see what the world was thinking.

JS: What a legacy you created also for yourself in that leadership role, because you influenced the entire field. You helped to advance and mentor a lot of people’s ideas forward because you took that attitude of ‘everybody’s voice needs to be heard.’ We need to build community, again, coming back to building community.

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How Do You Teach Polyrhythms?
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Catherine Rollin

Written By Catherine Rollin, Pamela Pike

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Catherine Rollin, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Pamela Pike. Want to learn more about Rollin? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Rollin on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Catherine Rollin
Catherine Rollin.

Pamela Pike: How do you feel your work is having an impact in the world? You are fortunate. You hear from teachers all the time. You hear about these positive stories. Are there any you might want to share with us?

Catherine Rollin: I can tell you a very recent experience. Now that I have an active website, I have all these hard copy books. I’m also doing some digital downloads. So it’s been very, very rewarding to just get orders—I mean, obviously it’s nice to get orders for your music. But even more than the order is getting letters from people around the world, because people around the world are mainly reaching out for getting digital, because it’s so hard and so expensive to mail things. 

One lady who had contacted me during the pandemic time [is] in Ukraine, and she had already used a lot of my music before the war started. She was sending me student performances and many times students were—I don’t think they had even the comfort or freedom to even meet in one place for [a] recital—playing in their own house and then sending them in. 

She sent me a lot of things, but the nicest thing was that she contacted me and she went on my website, and she got all my new music, all these digital downloads, which was really wonderful, and then she wrote [to] me. She said, “This is gonna be the next recital, but we’re giving a recital of your Museum Masterpieces, Books A and B. Would you be so kind to just say hello to each student? I’ll give you the names of the pieces they’re playing. [Could you] just say hello or some little message to the student?” 

So there were about 30 students performing. I felt embarrassed because I don’t think I pronounced their names very well, but that was very meaningful to me.

PP: And it must have been for the students because they now have a connection with a real, living composer.

CR: Yes. I can’t even tell you because I felt like things were really hard in the country, and I felt like, if this is giving the kids some spirit—my music—what can I say other than it just made me feel like I was doing what I hope music is always doing, but it seemed especially special under their kind of dire circumstances. They just started sending me, before I left for here, all the tapes that they had made because I gave it as a pre-message. And so I haven’t had a chance to listen to all of them. I only listened to one, but it was outstanding. 

PP: Well, that’s wonderful that that’s still happening. You know, those children need music in their lives now.

CR: Yeah, right. So in that regard, I mean, anytime I feel that I’ve reached somebody who loves a piece and that means that they love music, I always feel gratified. But that one was especially moving to know that they carried on into this recital, you know, and and all that in these circumstances. So it was great.

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Catherine Rollin
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Sean Chen

Written By Sean Chen, Sara Ernst

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Sean Chen, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Sara Ernst. Want to learn more about Chen? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Chen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Sean Chen.
Sean Chen.

Sara Ernst: I want to ask about you as a teacher, you know, because that’s a different process when you have another person where you’re helping them to discover [how to express their ideas] and find that, and explore that. So how has that been for you as an instructor?

Sean Chen: It’s a very interesting experiment and experience for me, because I’m always trying to think, “Okay, am I doing the right approach for this student?” I have a default approach I like to do. You know, I’m very logical. I like to talk about form, talk about articulations, which reflects my teachers. It also depends on the kind of piece, because if it’s something— I think French pieces just draw the [Jerome] Lowenthal out from me. So I go into, like, more the spirit of music making and, you know, the imagination, but sometimes I have to remind myself to, you know, take a step back and be like, “Hey, is this working? Do I need to try a different approach for this student? I’m still relatively young and I think I still have a lot of room to grow in terms of being able to more efficiently pinpoint, like, “Oh, this student needs me to be maybe even more strict about not letting them get away with stuff.” Whereas some other students I know, “Okay, they’ll fix it next time.” I don’t like people being too pushy with me. I’m like, “I’ll get it, you know, I’ll work on it. I’ll get it. I remember what you say.” But not everyone’s like that. Some people want to be a little bit more strictly guided. 

SE: It makes me think back to your teacher who put the dates in your score. Right?

SC: Yeah! For example, I even, as a student, didn’t really write stuff in my score. Sometimes my teacher, Lowenthal, didn’t really write too much stuff. Matti [Raekellio] wrote a lot of stuff. There’s big circles and lines and big all caps.

SE: And then you open the book and just think fondly of your teacher when you see all those things.

SC: Yeah! So sometimes, again, I have to remember myself like, “Oh, I should go write it in their score because if they’re not writing it, I have to first be like, “Okay, are they going to remember it based on my experience of teaching them?” Because I know I don’t like to write stuff in my score, but maybe they need to. So it’s stuff like that. That’s very, very “psychology of teaching.” It’s not so much like are you a good pianist? It’s like, are you good at understanding people.

SE: Oh no it’s very true, right? It’s interesting how that can even change through the course of working with a student where their needs will change over time, right?

SC: Definitely, yeah. I try to channel my teacher when I [was] growing up, trying to get them interested about repertoire. You know, “Hey, have you heard this composer? Have you heard these pieces?” Trying to get them to broaden their horizons because I think at least from what I see where I’m teaching, a lot of students just want to play the standard repertoire. Even amongst the standard repertoire, a very limited version of the standard repertoire. I’m like, “Have you considered—do you know any Szymanowski?” “No, who’s that?” I don’t know nearly enough that I, you know, I think about post-modern stuff. I appreciated it when my teachers asked me, “Oh, have you heard this piece?” And so I try to do that too. Some of them take, well, to it. Some of them bring things in and I’m like, “Oh, you too! You actually chose this piece. Good! Whereas others just bring the same Beethoven sonatas in. I’m like, “Okay, all right, fine. We’ll work on that. That’s great.”

SE: And then plant some seeds and see where they go.

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More Than Just the Notes: An Interview with Sean Chen
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Piano Inspires Podcast: Midori Koga

Written By Midori Koga, Andrea Mcalister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Midori Koga, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Andrea McAlister. Want to learn more about Koga? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Koga on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Midori Koga.
Midori Koga.

Andrea McAlister: How do you maintain—I’m not even going to say balance because I don’t know that we can say in a balance—how do you maintain that motivation, inspiration, that keeps that passion going in yourself so that you can model that for others?

Midori Koga: It’s a really great question, and I’d love to ask you, too. [laughs] One of my great privileges is playing with my trio. I’m with a soprano and a clarinetist, and the three of us started playing together about 12 years ago. We live in different cities. Kim lives in Texas, and Lindsay lives in North Carolina, and I live in Toronto. And we happened to come together. Each one of us kind of knew the other one, and then we came together and did a couple of concerts, and there was a synergy as people, as three mothers and three women, working women, and as musicians. 

We play, we commission new works.The piano/soprano/clarinet combination is a little unusual, so we have been writing grants and commissioning works, and working with kind of a family of living composers. We keep going back to them, and they’re dear friends. We keep going back to these composers, I think because they tell stories of life and joys and gratitude and sometimes life and death, and a lot of parenting.

One piece that we just commissioned, is by Ivette Herryman Rodriguez, and she’s a woman from Cuba and is living in the States. We just sat together in a brainstorming session, and she said, “I would love to write a piece of music that somehow conveys this in-between. My home is Cuba, and my home is in the United States, but one foot in each place sometimes makes me feel like I’m in another world. And sometimes that’s special, and sometimes it’s lonely.” She expressed it so beautifully, and it’s something that I kind of responded to. I’m in Canada, I lived in the US, and I’m of Japanese heritage, and sometimes I feel, “Where do I belong?” In experiences like that where we talk as a trio, [we talk] a lot about what is our voice as a trio? What is our voice individually as musicians, and what is the voice of the composer and telling that story, and who are our audiences? 

Every time my students have said that they like it when I go away. Oh, I should think about why they’re saying that, but they like it. Let me see what they mean. [laughs] So they like it when I go away, because when I come back, you know, I have stories that I can share, and also I’m reminded again about the importance it is, “I know you’re stressed out, right?” They’re really feeling the pressure of upcoming recitals. It’s coming close to the year end, and you know, [I try] to help them remember that there’s a reason why you’re here. There’s a kernel of that passion and love and joy and a connection to the music that you’re playing and that you’re playing music of composers who have stories to tell, even as long ago composers. But now they’re playing more and more living composers, and I’m so glad to see that really blooming in recent years.

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Women in Higher Education
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